Last week, SciPlay announced the formation of a ‘special committee’ by its Board of Directors to evaluate a proposal from global supplier Light & Wonder. Matt Wilson, President and CEO of Light & Wonder, spoke exclusively to Gaming America about the potential purchase of SciPlay’s remaining shares.
Light & Wonder currently owns 83% of the economic interest of SciPlay, and would transition to full ownership of the company with the acquisition of the remaining 17% equity interest.
We asked Wilson about Light & Wonder’s overall strategy behind the decision, which he says “ladders up to the broader strategy” of Light & Wonder’s planned transformations of the company.
Wilson said of the company before its rebrand as Light & Wonder, “The old Scientific Games was this collection of assets in gaming, everything from a lottery business to a sports platform business to a content business.” Though the pandemic managed to lever company progress, Wilson adds that business is back on track.
He said, “We looked at what are our strategic determinators to streamline and focus the business. We ended up selling lottery and selling sports, and we got about six billion in net cash proceeds for all of that, which allows us to prepare the balance sheet. We're now a very focused organization. We’re around being a cross-platform global games company.
“We put games and platforms at the center of our universe. This is our obsession, the reason we exist. Then we have these three distinct, but very complementary, channels that we deploy the games across.”
Light & Wonder games can be seen in land-based casinos on slot machines, in SciPlay’s social casino world and in the iGaming sphere. Indeed, Light & Wonder's gaming revenue grew 18% for Q1 to $419m.
Wilson added, “We want to own that business going forward and unlock all the potential of having [SciPlay] in our portfolio of assets. It allows us some optionality around AV testing games in the social casino space, or doing wrap-it-up testing in front of the social casino player base.”
As for how long Light & Wonder has been considering bringing SciPlay back as a 100% in-house asset, Wilson said it’s “always been an idea.”
Wilson concluded, “Given where we are financially, given, where the balance sheets are now, it felt like the right time to bring it back in-house.”
SciPlay’s Board of Directors has not yet made a decision regarding the proposal.
